Tzofar website runs opinion column calling on readers to assassinate 'Yediot Aharonot' journalist after he asked how numbers of haredim can be reduced.

Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) news website Tzofar published an op-ed on Friday titled
“Take out Yaron London” in response to an article by London in the Yediot
Aharonot daily asking what efforts could be made to reduce the amount of haredim
in Israeli society.

“Exactly like Hitler should have been eliminated
before he killed the Jews, so too should be done to anyone who legitimizes
public opinion to kill haredi Jews,” columnist Shmuel Kooper wrote in response
for Tzofar.

The headline was subsequently modified to read, “contract the
existence of Yaron London,” mirroring the headline of London’s piece “Contract
ultra- Orthodoxy.”

London told Walla News website that he would not file
a police complaint against the website or Kooper.

MK Nissim Ze’ev labeled
London’s original comments “anti-Semitic” and said that had they been made by a
non-Jewish politician abroad about a country’s Jewish community there would have
been an enormous outcry and protest against them.

He said, however, that the language used in Kooper’s headline was
not appropriate, although he did not believe there was any serious intent to the
words.

London, in his article published on May 7, said that “Haredi
society educates people to be parasites and cultivates poverty,” and is the most
powerful agent for spreading “ignorance, prejudice and all sorts of other
nonsense.”

In reference to recent proposals for drafting more haredim
into the army, London said that the correct question is not how to draft them
and draw them into the job market, “but rather, what should be done in order to
reduce the amount of haredim within Israeli society.”

The strengthening
of haredi society will lead Israeli society to “ultimate defeat,” and so efforts
dedicated to the issue of haredi enlistment should be put towards “the great
challenge: Shrinking the ranks of the haredim.”

Kooper compared London’s
attitude to that of Hitler, saying that just as the Nazi leader presented Jews
as the reason behind all the ills of Germany, so to the Israeli establishment
has portrayed haredim over many years in order to prepare public opinion to come
out against the ultra-Orthodox community.